The disconnect between the bible, and its horrific actions versus the message

I've never proposed a topic, but I kinda got to this through the Panda's thumb blog, and the various links and posts I read from Christian and other posters.It all mostly focuses on Noah and his family, and how through creating the ark, they manage to be saved from the calamity that is brought down by God. But I started thinking about the idea if I'm in that position, with my family, disregarding the animals, the care, the idea logistics of it all.How would that feel? Because I can't imagine Noah didn't know anyone else BUT his family, as you grow up and build a family, you meet a lot of people, you deal with a lot of folk, friend or foe.But then you're dealing with a situation where everyone else but you and your family, will be killed. Drowned, and you're all that's left.I know people who have been in warzones and have PTSD, who have seen friends or even just enemies die in combat and the toll that has one those people, and how they remember it and how it haunts them at times. And I can't get over the fact that this one family, trudged through a global flood, killing literally everyone, left a ruined world in their wake basically, and were fine to just start up again without showing any struggle.How do Christians deal with that idea? I'm not exactly sure where to put this. But I wanna know how someone can get their mind around the fact, that for instance, if something like this were to happen today (Even though in scripture, it won't ever happen again) and today being the first time, and they survive while the whole world around them dies, that they can look up and see benevolence in God. Kindness or caring, love and trust.If anyone else around us managed to kill a hundred people, they'd be hated, even if they had some grand goal, some good intention (somehow) behind it. Yet there's a God who has killed and destroyed the entire planet so to speak, and it's barely given a second glance beyond how much of a lesson it is to us.How would one deal with the friends, the family, the friends and acquaintances they've grown up, fondly in some cases, because it couldn't be a world with just evil people, a society can't run on just evil deeds. How would they deal with that or even think about that?I want this to be a discussion not about the specifics of how it can or can't happen, but about how a human would deal with such an event, or how it affects them. What would people think if something like that situation happened to them, all aware of their goals to get through it, but also they would lose by going through it.

Thread copied here from the The disconnect between the bible, and its horrific actions versus the message thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

I grew up as a Christian, though I left a long time ago.I always took it as obvious that the Noah's ark story was fiction, not history. And I had a similar view of the Adam & Eve story and the Tower of Babel story.Many Christians do seem to take them as history. I find that quite strange. Those stories are just not at all realistic.

Yep, I quit believing when I was 12 or so but my mom made me keep going to church longer.As a kid I always thought they were fiction just like you.I have never been able to wrap my head around grownups actually believing any of it!

Yeah, but even then, the story is taken as a lesson about the folly of people and how it comes crashing down. That would work for me if it was peoples own actions that caused them to crash down, but even symbolically, it's still the God that provides the punishment.I could kinda understand it if it's humanities own wickedness that causes its own downfall, that we reached to high like Icarus flying towards the sun and that all comes crashing down. But it's not that, God decided humanity was wicked, and so all get killed. What is the point here?

The point is the afterlife. The point is to be qualified for the communion with god. Everlasting life. The point is to prepare, to study and believe. To tithe into the church's coffers, assent to the church's control of all aspects of life as dictated by the priests. The point is to pay and obey.The point is to guarantee your seat in eternity as another human clone in the choir.The fact that this scheme doesn't work is just incidental to the size of the coffers.

The underlying fallacy is that the Bible has a single message. The Bible is a collection of works written (and sometimes rewritten) over a great deal of time and within varying cultural contexts, often reinterpreted to try to fit it to new beliefs. Modern Christianity itself is the product of development and change and exists in a cultural context quite different from that of the first Christians.The Flood story in particular is old, predating even the origins of what is now Judaism. Even the version we have in Genesis is a merging or two stories derived from that original. Why should we expect it to have a message consistent with modern liberal Christian views ?

I was raised Unitarian. I never believed the Bible stories were real, but I did believe they characterized the God of Christianity, that the stories were intended to send a message. The OT does not paint a pretty picture, and the NT interpretation where no one who hasn't accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior can go to heaven, even if they've never heard of him, seems just as severe as the OT, minus the slaughter and genocide and salt pillars and all that.--Percy

This perfectly brings me up to another point actually. Heaven and hell. So if you're a good Christian you go to heaven. If you follow the commandments, worship God, that's where you'll go.And this heaven is eternal bliss, it's heaven after all. But what if your family doesn't follow your example? They will go to hell, for eternity.How could you feel good in heaven, knowing that the ones you love, the ones you care about, are suffering eternally? I know I wouldn't be able to feel good in such a situation. So does that mean in heaven you forget all worldly connections? Because I don't see another way for one to enjoy the joy of heaven, when that sort of past is weighing down upon you.

The marketing of the afterlife and salvation was a later addition, a handy sales item with absolutely no product liability. It was never a big issue within Judaism. And there are so many other issue, particularly with the Gospel of John were alleged sayings of Jesus are interspersed with editorial comments of the unknown author without any indications of where the alleged quote ends and the editorial comments begin.The biggest issue for me though is the blatant and misleading quote mining practice of the vast majority of the Fundamental Evangelical Christian communion and the fact that very many if not most Christians simply do not read what is written in context and instead fall into simply believing the interpretations and explanations marketed by the Carny Barker (AkA: Pastor, Priest, Father, Brother, Bishop ...).Another big issue is the simple ignorance of the facts outlined in so many of the Old Testament threads. In many of the God warns of a disaster coming and offers solutions but it is up to the people to actually perform those solutions.Examples: Big Flood Coming!!!!!! But humans need to build the boat and provision the boat and sail the boat and then replant and repopulate the world afterwards.There will be Good Times followed by very Bad Times!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Humans need to plant crops and raise them and build granaries and set aside surplus and store it up and then distribute the surplus to those in need.You will get to leave Egypt! But you will have to walk for years to get out and camp out and get up early to harvest the dew and send out hunting parties to catch wild birds if you want to live.The folk that created Christianity, over a period of 100 years or more, crafted and revised the message to suit audience and era. Jesus was never a Christian and Never actually tried to create a new religion and Jesus was an Apocalyptic Believer; one who truly believed that the End was near and that the order was going to change violently. He may have also believed that afterwards some better live would happen but it was from the Jewish perspective rather than anything marketed by those creating a new religion.But the basic message of Jesus, fed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, protect the weak, heal the sick, while not new and pretty much the echo of the Buddha, Confucius and other teachers in the past is still a great lesson. Christianity based on that short message could be awesome but that's also a near impossible sale to make. It's far easier to market You're Forgiven, Follow Me and the Reward will be Everlasting Joy.

It does seem a bit extreme. This god character is supposed to be all powerful, but it couldn't punish the actual wicked individual humans, instead it's so incompetent at being all powerful that it wipes out all living organisms. It hears every thought but then blames everyone. And it's overriding message is "love me or I will incinerate you for eternity." My response is: "go fuck yourself and take your angels with you!"

The way that I was taught it *is* humanity's wickedness. The so-called chosen people were human also and thus not perfect...any more than are today's "Christians" or any other group of people. Assuming then that *all* humanity is potentially bad, The stories first have God vowing to wipe out the humanity that He created in the flood
mythos...except for a remnant(one family) that He had chosen. So then it later goes from one family to one nation (Israel).The fact that God "blesses" Israel is not indicative of either their holiness or their wickedness. In my mind, God (as Creator) has every right to "bless" one person or everyone and is under no human moral judgment to be equal or fair about it as today's whiners seem to think would be "fair".The imperative is for humans to strive to be Holy rather than for God to be fair. Some apologists believe that surrender to Jesus empowers us to be Holy but at that point, we still have free will(in practice) and thus are judged by our own freedom. Atheists are under no more of a "death sentence" than are Christians or any other group.We become the decisions that *we*make... daily. And not everybody has a repentant heart or soul. Some of us think that we are in charge at all times.Which we are. This supports the contrarian assertion that we are what we do, not who we profess to be (as a special or chosen group, individual or nation).

Good point, which brings to mind the idea of (assuming there is a judge)
human individual choices as being reflective of their families' fate or their nation's fate.This would be relevant with or without GOD as an Omnipotent Judge.The issue is Responsibility. Perhaps if we shirk ours, we in effect have judged ourselves by our actions.

Now you know better than that. The point is our behavior is this life. IF GOD exists, it would be folly to fight Him in the afterlife. We could follow your example and simply ignore all "gods".I would imagine that IF God exists, He would not simply banish the likes of you to hell for ignoring Him, but He likely would make you aware that His existence was not solely a product of your own mind.And if it turns out that you were right, it wouldn't matter anyway...except for the idea of who or what we would commune with or reject in the afterlife.

A modern retelling might involve a bomb shelter and a nuclear apocalypse.There would be an awkward moment a few months after they left the Ark once they realized who their kids' marriage prospects are. Family reunion turned singles mixer.